Final Exam Flashcards
Mind as Computer:
What is the computer metaphor at the heart of cognitive psychology?
The mind as a computer - info comes in, and something comes out. People process info and a behavior results. Helps guide research questions (ex. do we do things serially?)
History of Field:
What was Donald Broadbent’s role?
- Father of cognitive psychology
History of Field:
What area did John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner focus on?
-Behaviorism: focus on stimulus and behavior
History Field:
What was Max Wertheimer’s contribution?
- Gestalt psychology: study of how brain organizes the world (ex. we see patterns like groupings of color)
History of Field:
Who was Edward Titchner and what was his contribution?
Student of Wundt. Brought Structuralism to the United States
History of Field:
Describe the school of thought Wilhelm Wundt was associated with.
Structuralism - understanding components/structure of consciousness
Founders:
Describe the area of psychology Ernst Weber and Gustav Fechner focused on
Psychophysics - focus on the relationship between external stimuli and internal experience
Information Processing Approach:
How is Sternberg’s study an example of the information-processing approach?
- response time is a clue as to how the brain retrieves something
Sensation:
What are the function of the pupil and iris?
- Pupil: allows light to pass into eye
- Iris: muscle: adjusts pupil depending on available light
Sensation:
What is the function of the cornea?
- Provide some protection against damage
Sensation:
What is the function of the lens?
- Bend light
- Adjusts to accommodate distance
Sensation:
What is the function of the retina and the fovea?
- Retina: location of rods and cones
- Fovea: point of central focus, full of cones, small part of overall retina
Sensation:
What is the optic nerve?
- where axons of cells bind together
- blind spot in this area
- blind spot of one eye filled in by the other eye
Sensation:
What is the difference between rods and cones?
- rods: respond to any light, don’t need much light; more active at night, predominantly in periphery, less detail
- cones: respond to preferred wavelengths, need lots of light, more active during the day
Sensation:
What are after effects? What color vision theory is this?
The result of tiring out the cones that respond to a certain color which then allows you to see the opposite color. Colors seen as paired opposites: red & green, yellow & blue, black & white. This is the Opponent Process Theory of color vision
Sensation:
Describe the ventral stream
- “what” stream
- temporal lobe
- processes object’s properties
- damage produces visual agnosia (difficulty recognizing objects)
Sensation:
Describe the dorsal stream
- “where” stream
- parietal lobe
- processes spatial relationships
- damage can produce apraxia (difficulty with some movements)
Bottom-Up & Top-Down:
What is the difference between bottom-up and top-down processing?
- Bottom-up: processing stimuli visually, building up into recognition
- Top-down: start with knowledge and expectations
- Perception is both bottom-up and top-down
Perception:
What did the Hubel and Wiesel study find?
- cells in visual cortex have more specific preferences than ganglions
- individual cells have preferred angle (fire more for certain angles and less for others)
- cells in hyper columns have similar preferences
Visual Illusions:
What is Carey and Diamond’s (1977) Encoding Switch Hypothesis?
When first born, humans process faces featurally. Transition to holistic processing around age 10. Young children process featurally, adults process holisitically.
Visual Illusions:
What’s the difference between holistic (configural) and featural face
Featurally: process individual features
Holisitic: process as a whole
Visual Illusions:
What are Gestalt Grouping laws?
Ways of grouping that help us organize and draw meaning from objects; focus on the whole is the sum of its parts
Visual Illusions:
Name and briefly explain the Gestalt grouping laws
Proximity - closeness between objects
Similarity - see structure
Continuation - if view something partially blocked, it seems to continue
Closure - default assumption that objects are closed, have edges, take up area
Good figure - default assumption of regular shapes
Cross-Modal Interactions:
Explain the ball illusion
Typically the clicking noise in the 2nd trial makes it more likely for people to report that the balls bounce off one another
Cross-Modal Interactions:
Explain the McGurk effect
Lips saying “ga,” hearing “ba,” so perception is neither and makes something in between like “da”
Cross-Modal Interactions:
Explain Hidaka and Shimoda’s first experiment
Investigated does color of comparison stimulus affect how sweet it’s judged compared to standard? Yes.
Comparison stim. was colored, adaptation stim and standard were clear. Sugar content of stan. and comp. were the same, adaptation stim slightly higher. W/out adaptation condition - comparison reported to be sweeter than standard. W/ adaptation - comparison reported to be less sweet
Cross-Modal Interactions:
Explain Hidaka and Shimoda’s second experiment
Does color influence adaptation process? NO.
W/out adaptation - JND need less to notice difference; PSE need less sugar.
W/ adaptation - JND need more, PSE need more
Models of Attention:
Describe the Early Selection Model. Who proposed this model?
- attention selects before identification
- encoding (followed by gate) then identification, response selection, response execution
Models of Attention:
Describe the Late Selection Model. What researchers proposed it?
- Deutsch and Deutsch
- attention selects after identification
- encoding, identification, (gate), response selection, response execution
Models of Attention:
Describe the Attenuation Theory. Who proposed it?
- proposed by Treisman
- Attention does select early but the filter isn’t strong
- what you inhibit can come through in a weakened state
- ex. in conversation with someone but hear name called far away
Models of Attention:
Describe the Load Theory. Who proposed it?
- Lavie
- cognitive load: how much stuff you’re dealing with
- default is to process everything
- low load: process everything; late selection
- high load: selective (early selection)
Endogenous & Exogenous Attention:
How does attention shift in regards to exogenous attention?
- exogenous attention: reflexive attention shift; something in environment
- overt: eyes’ gaze shift
- covert: eyes/head stay fixed
Endogenous & Exogenous Attention:
How does attention shift in regards to endogenous attention?
- voluntary attention shift
- choose to focus attention
- overt: eyes and head shift
- covert: eyes fixed
Controlled and Automatic Processing:
What is the difference between controlled and automatic processing?
- Automatic processing: no attention required
- Controlled processing: requires executive functions and control
Controlled and Automatic Processing:
How did the Payne study contrast controlled and automatic processing?
- looked at how implicit racial biases contribute to automatic/controlled processes
- subjects had to identify object as gun or tool; target object preceded by face of white or black male flashed
- exp. 1 no time limit - RT faster when pairing face of black male with gun, result low error rate, time to override automatic processing with controlled processing
- exp 2: time limit, higher error rate, automatic processing (no time to override), more willing to respond w/ automatic processing bc of time limit
Controlled and Automatic Processing:
How is the Stroop Task an example of the difference between controlled and automatic processing?
- SAY color of font, NOT the word which is name of a color
- difficult task bc reading is automatic for simple words
- have to control impulse to read the word and instead read ink color
Selective and Divided Attention:
Is attention capable of being divided (true multi-tasking)?
- Attention shifts between multiple tasks
- however can perform two tasks at the same type if they use separate functions and have no interference
Attention Failures and Deficits:
What is inattentional blindness?
- people paying attention to certain stimuli ignore/don’t see other stimuli
Attention Failures and Deficits:
What is change blindness?
- don’t see a change, especially if quick
Attention Failures and Deficits:
Which type of attention is impacted by ADD or ADHD?
- selective attention
- also less attentional control
Attention Applications:
What did Strayer et al’s study reveal about cell phone conversations while driving?
- talking on phone pulls attention from road
- exp. 1: people on phone took longer to press brake, longer to let go of it, longer to reach min. speed, also increased following distance
- exp 2: people on phone had less memory of billboards passed while driving
- exp: 4 took longer to identify words if on cell phone
Memory Models & Stages:
Describe the Atkinson-Shiffrin Model (Multi-Store Memory)
- SENSORY MEMORY: hangs onto info breifly to determine if relevant, if yes then pay ATTENTION and transfer to short-term
- SHORT-TERM (info may get TRANSFERred into long-term)
- LONG-TERM: retrieval processes an bring this info back into STM to enable response output
Memory Models & Stages:
What is the capacity and duration of short-term memory?
- duration: less than 30 sec
- capacity: 7 plus or minus 2 items
Memory Models & Stages:
What is the duration and capacity of long-term memory?
- duration: potentially lifelong
- capacity: potentially infinite
Memory Models & Stages:
Describe the Baddeley & Hitch Model
- 2 stores and 1 central executive in between them
- visuospatial sketchpad: focuses on spatial and visual info
- phonological loop: focuses on sound info
- central executive: determines what gets put into working memory, which store gets the info, can integrate info involving both sound and visual/spatial, manipulation
Memory Types and Processes:
What are declarative memories? What are the types of declarative memories?
- declarative/explicit: can consciously report them, can freely retrieve
- episodic: memories of things that happened to you
- semantic: memories of knowledge and info
Memory Types & Processes:
What are nondeclarative memories? What type of memory is nondeclarative?
- nondeclarative/implicit: don’t have ready for conscious retrieval
- procedural: memories of skills
Memory Types & Processes:
What is encoding?
- creating a memory
- important structures involved are hippocampus and prefrontal cortex
Memory Types & Processes:
What is consolidation?
- strengthening memories
- memories stored throughout brain
Memory Types & Processes:
Who was H.M? What abilities were affected and what were intact?
- suffered head injury from bike, had severe seizures originating near hippocampus
- part of hippocampus removed
- short-term memory intact
- long-term memories from before surgery intact (they aren’t stored in hippocampus)
- intact non-declarative
- couldn’t make new episodic memories
Memory Types & Processes:
What is forgetting?
- no longer able to recall a memory which had been previously encoded
Memory Types & Processes:
What is the difference between proactive and retroactive interference?
- proactive: old info interfering with storing new info; forward in time
- retroactive: backward in time; new info interfering with recalling old info
Memory Errors:
Describe Loftus and Palmer’s experiment
- car crash judgments
- content of verb presented in question influenced speed estimates (“smashed” elicited higher speed estimates)
- exp. 2 false memories of broken glass more likely to be formed if verb smashed was used
Memory Errors:
What effect does misattribution have on memory?
- attribute info to wrong source
Memory Errors:
What effect do inferences have on memory? What did Sulin and Dooling find regarding this?
- inferences drawn when experiencing the event
- Sulin and Dooling: paragraph about a girl, one group had paragraph with name Helen Keller, subjects formed false memory that paragraph contained the words “deaf” and “blind”
Memory Errors:
What effect does suggestion have on memory?
- info presented after experience can impact how it’s remembered
Memory Applications:
What factors influence eyewitness testimony?
- amount of time that has passed since event occurred
- exposure to information after the event may alter memory
- cross-race identification
- leading questions that suggest a certain answer
Memory Applications:
Describe the problems with the eyewitness account in the Lockerbie bombing case
- passenger plane bombed over Scotland, police recovered suitcase which had pajamas
- 9 months passed between the event and when shopkeeper was questioned
- shopkeeper’s details were conflicting/inconsistent in different interviews
- he had seen the suspect’s face on poster, could have changed his memory
- cross-racial identification can be a factor
- possible miscarriage of justice with this case
Memory Applications:
Describe the Fells Acres Daycare case
- arrest and conviction of man, sister and mother
- conviction based on testimony of children
- child reported 3 months late that he had been inappropriately touched (he had wet his pants and been changed)
- issues with child testimonies:
- amount of time
- suggestibility
- social influences
- repeated questions
- use of dolls
- understandability of questions